Francis M. Serenbetz, a German immigrant and minister, wrote from Hartford, Connecticut to Edward Everett Hale, a member of the New England Emigrant Aid Company's Executive Committee. Serenbetz informed Hale that he planned to lead a group of about a dozen families of fellow Germans to Kansas to establish a "christian community." Attached to the letter is an agreement, dated February 8, 1857, outlining the communal labor and property arrangements for the proposed Kansas settlement.